Health Insurance for the Self-Employed: An Advisor’s Guide to Smarter Planning

Many self-employed clients turn to their financial advisor when faced with confusing and expensive health insurance options. In this session, we’ll walk through how to confidently guide those clients—whether they’re a 1099 employee, leaving a W-2 job to start their own company or scaling their business. We’ll cover ACA marketplace plans, private plans, short-term options, and cost-sharing arrangements, with a focus on needs based health insurance, tax strategy and subsidy qualification, as well as risk management. Attendees will leave with practical frameworks for integrating health coverage into the broader financial plan—without needing to be insurance experts themselves.

3 Learning Objectives:

1. Distinguish between the major types of health insurance options available to self-employed clients and how each aligns with different financial situations.

2. Understand how AGI, household composition, and filing status affect subsidy eligibility and total cost of coverage.

3. Use a planning framework to identify when a client is overpaying or under-covered—and provide strategic next steps.